Local MP and acting PM Barnaby Joyce officially launched Australia’s first medicinal cannabis farm today called the DanEden farm. The 47-hectare farm located just near Tamworth has been named in honour of Dan Haslam who died from bowel cancer last year aged just 25-years-old.

Dan was an advocate for legalising medical marijuana in Australia and his mum, Lucy, has continued his dream for it to become legal. The acting PM congratulated the Haslams in their push to legalise medicinal cannabis in Australia. He said, “Amongst your grief, which you will carry for a long time, you have managed to use that energy to do something in a positive way. When you can find a use for any part of a plant that can assist people when they are ill, when they are in pain, you should do it.”

Lucy recently visited Israel along with Mike Baird as part of a delegation that toured patient clinics and privately owned dispensary. While at the farm she said it was a start it “re-educating Australian health providers around the use of medical cannabis.

Hi-5 member Tim Harding whose daughter suffers from a form of epilepsy was also at the launch. He said she was suffering an average of 100 seizures a day and got relief from medicinal cannabis when conventional medicines failed to help her.

The federal government is in the works of a legal framework around the cultivation and supply of the drug but earlier this week Victoria became the first state to pass legislation in allowing medicinal cannabis.